Prague -The City of a Hundred Spires

Rain, rain and more rain. That was the forecast for the next few days. Karolina, Sune, Oliver (Oli) and Oskar (Osky) Fredriksen were our wonderful hosts. Karolina had just come back from Montreal from a world  curling conference so off to work she went. That left Roz to take me site seeing.

One of her favourite places is the castle and in the castlenis the beautiful cathedral. Many of the tombs are ancient around 10th century. Becuse Prague wasn't bombed like London and Paris it has managed to retain much of it's history.

The walls of the castle surround several churchs and a baslica which was originally a nunnery.

Basilica.

There is a row of the castle wall that contains old shops and the most amazing medival armour collection.

I love this statue and some days this is how we feel.

Looking from Prague Castle to  the old city. I love the red rooves.

Roz took me to some famous art work.

Of course DHL gets your package delivered.

Our next stop was Charles Bridge. It was built in 1357 to connect the castle and old town.

It has 30 statues of saints and patron saints on it.

The is one of gates at the end of Charles bridge. If you look really closely you will see a Macdonalds tucked in there. They are everywhere.

The John Lennon wall. This is where peaceful graffiti protests were written and it commerates  John Lennon's death and his peaceful protests. Rumour has it that the communist soldiers would paint every night and the next day it would be graffitied again.

Now of course we had to go to the curling club as Karolina had her practice and of course i was with Roz. Where else would you go in the evening 

The next day was a right off it rained so hard that flood warnings were issued for the whole region. In 2002 all of the old town in Prague was severely flooded. Even their Metro had water and mud in it. They were taking this seriously and were emptying reservoirs and putting up sand bags and barriers in the river. So we caught up on some laundry and Camino stuff and i figured out how to get the blog up and running. We decided dinner out was a good option. I had this traditional Czech dinner of beef tenderloin in sour cream sauce with potatoe dumplings. It had cranberry sauce and unsweetened whipped cream. Yummy but notice no vegetables. Vegetables can be difficult to find in restaurants and salad always have lots of stuff on them.of course Sune and Oli had traditional tartare. You smear fresh garlic on fried toast and then put the tartare mix on top. It was really good and Sune said he was proud of me as I am the first Canadian he knows that ate a full slice.

The next day said we would have stoppage of rain for a bit so we popped out to go see the Old Town. First stop Wencelas Square. Named after Wencelas the saint of Bohemia. This square is where protests, demonstrations and public gathering were held. Thus is also where the celebrations took place when the communists left Czechoslovakia. Karolina says she was too young to remember it but her mother does.

Next stop the most delicious Czech treat. A sugary light cone with fillings. I had white chocolate, strawberries and whipped cream. Good thing we are walking 800 km.

This is a very famous astronomical clock it chimes on the hour and at the top according to Roz animals come out but I was to learn they are the 12 apostles. It is a medival clock built in 1410 and still runs.

It had started to rain so we ducked into a Turkish Shisha shop and had the most elegant tea.

Before we headed home we had to check the river out. It had risen about a meter since Friday.

That night we were blessed with the most beautiful sunset. Tomorrow  off to Paris.